Isaac Laquedem

Isaac proposes another campaign pledge

Let's ask the Portland City Council, Metro, and the Multnomah County Commission to take the temperance pledge: not one dollar for building or upgrading regional sports facilities and convention centers until the Sellwood Bridge is replaced.

Governor Palin's critics expect more from women than from men

Another thing that struck me when I read what the blogosphere is saying about Governor Palin is that so many of the comments were to this effect: Sarah Palin should not be running for national office when she has a newborn and another young child to take care of.

Suppose her husband was the governor: would anyone be saying that he should not run for higher office because he had two young children to care for?

The same standard would disqualify Senator Obama from running, and would have disqualified Governor Clinton in 1992 and Senator Kennedy in 1960.  But maybe it's different for male politicians.

Labor Day with Utah Phillips

As is my wont, I celebrate Labor Day with a suitable post which also serves duty as a memorial to Grandmother Laquedem, an ardent socialist to the end who died on Labor Day during the Nixon Administration.  Notwithstanding a recent leap from Labor to Management, I remain a fan of the labor movement, as long as the part of it that I employ doesn't want a raise.  Today's post is an excerpt from the work of the late Bruce "U. Utah" Phillips (1935-2008), the concluding portion of the song "Dump The Bosses Off Your Back."  (The rest of the song lyric is here; the video links to Mr. Phillips singing a different song.)

Are you almost split asunder?
Loaded like a long-eared jack?
Boob, why don't you buck like thunder?
And dump the bosses off your back!
All the agonies you suffer,
You can end with one good whack;
Stiffen up, you orn'ry duffer,
And dump the bosses off your back!     

A kind thought for Uncle Farmer

One of Robert Heinlein's characters says, "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

I don't know anyone who can do all 21.  (I think I can do only 13.)  Uncle Farmer, who never went to college and who turned 90 last year, could do at least 16 of them, some self-taught.  His health is poor, and he's now in the hospital.  My thoughts are with him and My Aunt The Winemaker.

Sarah Palin and the Babygate that wasn't

I missed most of this weekend's excitement about Sarah Palin and her youngest son Trig, born on April 18 of this year.  As I pieced it together, here's what went on. 

Governor Palin announced on March 6 that she was seven months pregnant.  In mid-April she was giving a speech in Texas when she felt contractions and leaked some amniotic fluid, but did not go into labor.  She called her doctor and flew to Seattle and then to Anchorage.  At Anchorage she drove, or was driven, 40 miles to a small, modern hospital near her house, where labor was induced and where it was announced that she gave birth the next day to her son.

On August 30, a contributor to the Daily Kos website who posts under the name ArcXIX published a long analysis in which he argued that the boy was not Governor Palin's, but was actually the son of her daughter Bristol, and that the Governor and her husband were covering that up and claiming the baby as theirs, presumably to protect their daughter.  Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic linked to the Daily Kos story on August 31 without agreeing with the premise; Mr. Sullivan simply suggested that the McCain-Palin campaign should respond to it by releasing appropriate medical records.

I won't repeat the entire argument; it was ingeniously constructed; unfortunately for the author, it appears to be dead wrong.  One of the author's key points was that Governor Palin didn't appear to be pregnant in photographs taken during the winter of 2007-08.  The author missed this one, which a blogger found (anything will eventually be found, thanks mainly to Google) on a Flickr account, showing a distinctly pregnant governor in March of 2008.  ArcXIX did make a second try, posting this follow-up on August 31.  One piece of evidence was a photograph that included the Governor's daughter, claimed by ArcXIX to have been taken around December 2007 even though the newspaper it came from, the Anchorage Daily News, took the picture in October 2006.

The story itself, I think, has been sufficiently debunked, and the credibility of "ArcXIX" sufficiently destroyed.  It did, however, attract a lot of comments (over 1000 between the two posts).  Two thoughts struck me as I read the comments and other internet postings on the story, one of which is the old political saying, "It's not the crime but the coverup."  Presidents Clinton and Nixon provide good examples of this saying in action.

The allegation relied heavily on photographs of the Governor and her family from the Governor's official web page, maintained by the State of Alaska.  Sometime over the weekend, some of the photos disappeared and others were moved.  At some point -- in the next day or two -- the state will have to say who deleted and rearranged the photographs, and who ordered that it be done.

The other thought is that as the story developed and became more clear, the thrust of the comments moved from "Sarah Palin participated in a deception by passing her daughter's baby off as her own" (the now-debunked allegation of the Daily Kos poster) to "Sarah Palin is unfit to be vice president because she didn't disclose that her daughter became pregnant before getting married."  That's out of line for two reasons.  First is that the doings of a candidate's family members don't say anything about the qualifications of the candidate (any more than the antics of Hugh Rodham reflect on the qualifications of his sister).  Second is that if we limited high office to only those adults whose children didn't jump the starting gun, our presidents would mostly be childless and we'd have trouble filling the House and the Senate.